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Friday, April 6, 2012

Happy Easter Red Eyed Gravy and Ham Mafia and Daddy

Well hello to all my foodie friends out there in web land I hope all is well this Easter season.  I hope you are going to be cooking some ham and Red Eyed Gravy.  Ham is what my mom always made on Easter Sunday with pineapple, cherries, brown sugar and a few cloves, but not to many just enough to give it a lite flavor for the ham.  Our dad always made Ham and Red Eyed Gravy in the mornings with the slices of left over Ham with girts. He was a mountain man from Spring City Tennessee and his dad was Irish and his mother was from Oklahoma and full Cherokee Indian.  John, his dad saw her on a river boat and traded her for some goods to her dad. So they had 16 children and they lived on a mountain in Tennessee and when my grandmother passed the kids didn't know what to do with the land, they couldn't agree is what I mean so they donated it to the state of Tennessee and there is a Newby National Park named after us and that is the story that we were told anyway.  Well when my Daddy was in the army during WW11 he learned to design and make furniture so when the war was over he and a few of his brothers opened up a furniture manufacturing plant in Florida, Miami if I remember right and we lived in the Cables, am not sure if am naming that right, long time ago.  Any who it was in the 1950's.  However they had to many Chefs and not enough Indians so our Dad left them and opened place around the country.  One of them was in Compton California and it was in the early 60's because I was about 12 years old then.  Any who you know my Daddy always looked Italian with his cold black hair and dark brown eyes.  He stood 6' 3" tall and was about 260 pounds but all muscle when he was at that age.  Well he had six kids and a wife, and a couple more that we didn't find out about until after we were grown.  Well one day three men in suits came calling to my Daddy and told him that they expected some money from him for certain thing that they would do for him, like protection money.  Well they told him that they knew where he lived, how many kids he had and our names and where we all went to school. Well that didn't set well with my dad and he stood up to those men and told them that if any harm came to anyone of his children or his wife then they had better get ready to die because he would hunt down each and everyone of them himself.  He also told them that he would close the whole plant down before he paid them one dime.  So needless to say he closed the plant down and moved use in the middle of the night to Houston, Texas and opened a small Upholstery Shop. Any who we ate a lot of Red Eyed Gravy at our house.  I hope you enjoy the story and give this recipe a try with some ham left overs.

Red Eyed Gravy

Ham Sliced Pieces, like 5 or 6 will do
2 Cups Strong Coffee
Black Pepper to taste
1 tsp. Onion Powder

Cook the ham slices in a sauce pan till browned then remove from pan.  To the drippings you heat and add the coffee, black pepper, and onion powder.  Cook sauce for about 5 to 10 minutes until it reduces and you have all the pieces off the bottom of the pan.  Serve over grits or even mashed potato's.  Bona Y'all.

I hope you come like my fan page on facebook, "Cooking With MadJon and Friends".  Go watch and get recipes from the TV shows at http://www.aikenstandard.com/ ASTV 95.  Send me some recipes at madjon51@aol.com and tell me some stories about them, all foods have a great story.  Happy Easter and happy trails to you until we meet again.  Come follow my blog please.

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